More Like This

Preview

Any consideration of the ‘Bible as Literature and Sacred Text’ must begin by recognizing the problematic nature of that deceptively simple conjunction, ‘and’. Although it may imply an easy equivalency, these two identities have never rested easily with one another. For centuries, appreciation for Scripture's artistry sprang from the devout conviction that its divine Author would offer nothing less than perfection. Now, by contrast, biblical writing is typically considered a human endeavour that warrants critical consideration for historical and aesthetic reasons. Given the Bible's importance...

Any consideration of the ‘Bible as Literature and Sacred Text’ must begin by recognizing the problematic nature of that deceptively simple conjunction, ‘and’. Although it may imply an easy equivalency, these two identities have never rested easily with one another. For centuries, appreciation for Scripture's artistry sprang from the devout conviction that its divine Author would offer nothing less than perfection. Now, by contrast, biblical writing is typically considered a human endeavour that warrants critical consideration for historical and aesthetic reasons. Given the Bible's importance to Western literature, people study it to gain some notion of the biblical literacy that until recently almost any writer both possessed and expected to find in a reader.